Order
1. We have heard Shri K.K Venugopal, learned Senior Counsel for the State of Tamil Nadu in support of IA No. 7 and Shri G. Ramaswamy, learned Senior Counsel for the Election Commission. Learned Solicitor General appeared for the Government of India.
2. On 2-8-1993, the Election Commission of India, under certain extraordinary circumstances, felt compelled in view of the difficulties encountered and experienced by it in the matter of securing appropriate deployment of security and paramilitary forces for the proper and efficient conduct of the elections, to declare that the by-elections in the country to the various constituencies shall stand postponed till 18-12-1993. The further consequential orders made by the Election Commission of India pursuant to its general order of 2-8-1993 had the effect of postponing the elections in two constituencies at Tamil Nadu as well.
3. The two constituencies in the State of Tamil Nadu are — the “34-Ranipet Assembly Constituency” and “22-Palani Parliamentary Constituency”. The State of Tamil Nadu was aggrieved by this postponement. The orders of the Election Commission were challenged by the State of Tamil Nadu in Writ Petitions Nos. 14690-92 of 1993 filed before the High Court. The High Court by its interlocutory orders stayed the operation of the order of the Election Commission dated 2-8-1993. At that stage the Election Commission brought up special leave petitions and the transfer petitions against the proceedings before the High Court.
4. The controversy centres around the proclaimed dissatisfaction of the Election Commission as to the responses of the Central Government to its orders and directions for deployment of adequate paramilitary and security requirements in the constituencies going to the polls. One facet of this controversy is whether the Election Commission is entitled to issue such ‘directions’ to the Government. The question assumes significance from the constitutional position of the plenitude of the powers of the Election Commission; whether they include the power to assess, prescribe and impose security standards in accordance with its own exclusive perception of the law and order situation. What should happen if the Central Government is unable to accept the Commission's perception of the law and order situation? Or the Commission's assessment of the requisites of security arrangements? Who shall resolve the dispute if the Central Government expresses its own constraints as to the availability or affordability of the Commission's demands? The stand of the Commission seems to suggest that under the constitutional dispensation, it alone is the exclusive constitutional authority in this behalf. These then, indeed, are some of the questions which arise in the substantive independent Writ Petition No. 616 of 1993 brought up by the Election Commission of India before this Court.
5. The Election Commission of India is a high constitutional authority charged with the function and the duty of ensuring free and fair elections and of the purity of the electoral process. It has all the incidental and ancillary powers to effectuate the constitutional objective and purpose. The plenitude of the Commission's powers corresponds to the high constitutional functions it has to discharge. In an exercise of the magnitude involved in ensuring free and fair elections in the vastness of our country, there are bound to be differences of perception as to the law and order situation in any particular constituency at any given time and as to the remedial requirements. Then again, there may be intrinsic limitations on the resources of the Central Government to meet in full the demands of the Election Commission. There may again be honest differences of opinion in the assessment of the magnitude of the security machinery. There must, in the very nature of the complexities and imponderables inherent in such situations, be a harmonious functioning of the Election Commission and the Governments, both State and Central. If there are mutually irreconcilable viewpoints, there must be a mechanism to resolve them. The assessment of the Election Commission as to the state of law and order and the nature and adequacy of the machinery to deal with situations so as to ensure free and fair elections must, prima facie, prevail. But, there may be limitations of resources. Situation of this kind should be resolved by mutual discussion and should not be blown up into public confrontations. This is not good for a healthy democracy. The Election Commission of India and the Union Government should find a mutually acceptable coordinating machinery for resolution of these differences.
6. Shri Dipankar P. Gupta, learned Solicitor General of India, submitted that the Union Government has its own perceptions of the law and order situation in the two constituencies in question and has genuine and bona fide reservations as to the correctness of the quantum of deployments actually demanded by the Election Commission. He stated that the paramilitary forces like the CRPF etc. are not intended to be deployed as individual policemen for individual police duties but are intended as a collective force for certain specific ends and purposes. He submitted that a boothwise assessment and deployment of the forces indicated by the Election Commission has its own conceptual infirmities as to the role of the paramilitary forces and that, at all events, the actual logistics for boothwise deployment of such personnel indicated or implicit in the assessment by the Election Commission would place the Government in serious difficulties on future similar occasions where deployment of forces on similar calculations is insisted upon at the time of General Elections. He said that inadequacy of resources would render it difficult to accommodate such disproportionately high demands.
7. Learned Solicitor General also pointed out that even the assessment by the Commission of the security requirements for the two constituencies has not been consistent but ambulatory; and that a communication received just this morning had indicated a high requirement of 17 companies. He said that the Election Commission had not indicated earlier the actual requirements but had merely sought what was referred to as necessary and adequate.
8. Learned Solicitor General, however, assured that if the pattern of the present demands for deployment and the calculation implicit in it are not intended as rigid and inflexible standards for the future, the Government may not find it difficult, as a one-time exercise, to accommodate even the present demands of the Commission. This helpful statement of the learned Solicitor General, we think, should defuse the present impasse between the Election Commission of India and the Union Government.
9. In the meanwhile, the interest of the State which has been complaining that its two important constituencies have gone unrepresented for a long time, should not be ignored. The State of Tamil Nadu has a serious grievance that elections in these two constituencies are postponed as a result of wrangles between the Election Commission of India on the one hand, and the Union Government on the other, with which the State has really no concern. Shri Venugopal, appearing for the State of Tamil Nadu, stated that the State accepts the assessment of the Election Commission of India as to the security requirements, and it is now up to the Union Government to meet those requirements. Shri Venugopal says that, at all events, the democratic aspirations of the voters in these constituencies should not be kept in abeyance any longer.
10. We really see no difficulty in the present position. Now that the Union Government, though with its own reservations as to the future, agrees to deploy the forces, the Election Commission should have no hesitation in fixing the dates for the polls in the two constituencies. We reiterate that the power and duty of fixing the dates of polling are clearly that of the Election Commission. We trust that the Election Commission will immediately proceed to discharge its statutory and constitutional duties in the matter of having early elections in the two constituencies.
11. IA No. 7 is disposed of accordingly.
Court Masters